Tuesday, 11 June 2013

Three Games - One Day

On Sunday I was kindly invited by another member of the Lead Adventure Forum to attend a day of gaming in Horsham. All credit to Kevin (aka Damas) for organising such a splendid venue, refreshments and a great event.

In total eight of us, drawn from as far afield as Oxfordshire & Dorset headed to Sussex. These included the familiar names of Mamalute, Matakashi, Captain Blood, Dr De’Ath, Overlord, Mason. I’d met most of these friendly guys at previous events in the past year and its great to build new friendships at these meets.

Having started off with much gusto in the local cafe for breakfast we headed to the hall booked for our day’s play.

The group discuss the final game of the day

Quite quickly tables for the three games were set up and we could start in earnest. Three games were on offer, Matakashi’s Conan Prison break using his excellent and very clever Crom rules, a Robin Hood six player participation game run by Mamalute and Dr De’ath (using the excellent Jim Bibbly terrain show cased in a previous post) and my own 10mm scale re-enactment of a famous Zulu Wars called defending the mission.

Having quickly laid out the Zulu game I then joined the crew playing Crom. In our particular game three beautiful warrior maidens had to cross a market town on the fringes of the Shemite desert and spring their lover Conan from the prison. To do this they had to avoid the attentions of the marauding slavers and the rather violent ‘Deathdealer’ warriors. The mechanics of the game are very simple, each character has 10 dice, each turn these are allocated to combat, movement, or initiative. For example if you allocate four dice to movement – you roll and move the totalled number of inches. Combat dice allow either a number of to hit throws or defensive throws. The loser of a combat loses dice thereby preventing them from taking as many actions in the next turn – when you lose all your dice you are dead.

In the first game we played each maiden went their own way with little sign of cooperation – after all they were looking for Conan’s favour ! Quite quickly the attention of the slavers and deathdealer had reduced the number of participant in some rather savage combat. By chance Mason managed to break into prison releasing Conan from his bonds. A chance find of Subotai hiding in the market place soon balanced the odds and after much merriment of watching Conan stagger around the board (his movement was atrocious) we soon finally brought the locals to heel. We repeated the game at the end of the day in which the maidens opted for a much stronger team approach, suffice to say they won.

Apologies now but in the heat of the battle I took very few photos...

The morning moved on and folks moved across to the Zulu game. Two players would control the Impis, one player would lead the defence of the mission and the final player managing the relief force of Boers. Using a revised version of the Restless Native rules (see link) the game quickly gathered pace. A standard deck of cards activates units (Diamonds – British defenders, Hearts – the Boers, and the Zulu’s Spades & Clubs) . This is a game of attrition with the Zulus attempting to reach the drift before succumbing to British volleys and cannon fire. In our game the Zulus managed to wipe out all of the British stands bar one before the third joker arrived (went through the pack twice) – a nail biting hotly contested game that went to the wire!

Thanks to Captain Blood for these photos...

Lunch was upon us so we headed out down to the local beefeater for some beer and Sunday roasts, burgers, salads and steak.

The afternoon was dominated by the six player Robin Hood participation. Each player was given a character with a small retinue and a set of objectives. Achieving these objectives would award points, and subsequently the winner. These included the rescue/kidnap of the fair Maid Marion from the clutches of Max of Clifford, the retrieval/theft of monies from the local taxman, and the escort/assassination of disguised King Richard. Using a variant of the Sharp Practice rules we eagerly set about our tasks. I for my sins was leading a band of disgruntled knights who had been handsomely paid by Price John to murder his brother, King Richard. Sadly for me he was discovered early on by the leprous knights of St Lazarus. A fierce charge by my few knights through the village miserably failed to achieve their target (although the cowardly King Richard and his escort were severely shocked and forced to retire )

Mean whilst Little John rescued Marion and dragged her off in to Sherwood Forest (probably to show her that is name really was wrong!), and Robin with his merry men were engaged in a fierce firefight with Sheriff.

Well what of Guy of Gisbourne, rather cleverly he escorted the taxman into Nottingham castle and awaited news from the forest. He did not have to wait that long...the Sheriff fell to a well placed arrow and Guy promptly declared himself as the new Sheriff. Robin mused, and Alan a dale strummed ‘I shot the Sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy’.

A lovely looking game, some fantastic figures on display and great fun.

Captain Blood has written a great AAR on the first game which can be found here: